


How to Deal with Stress

by LetsGoStealAFanfic



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Ben Is Stressed, Domestic, Enjoy!, F/F, F/M, Fluff, I haven't seen Descendants 3 yet, I'm afraid to, M/M, Messing with Audrey, OT5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 12:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20114947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetsGoStealAFanfic/pseuds/LetsGoStealAFanfic
Summary: When Ben gets stressed his partners come up with an interesting way to make him feel better.





	How to Deal with Stress

**Author's Note:**

> The response to my last Descendants fic blew me out of the water, this fandom is amazing and I love you all!

Ben was exhausted, he’d spent all day with the Royal Court and they hadn’t stopped droning on for hours. He listened as well as he could but after the third hour everything he heard blended into one long buzzing sound. He walked as calmly as he could back to his dorm room but every step felt like he was dragging cinder blocks behind him.

“Hey, Ben!” He heard a voice calling to him as he walked and he held in a sigh. He straightened his shoulders and smiled as best as he could. When he turned around he came face to face with Audrey.

“Hi Audrey, what can I do for you?”

“I wanted to talk to you, about the villain kids.”

“What about them?” Ben could feel his back getting tighter, and his smile became a lot more fixed.

“Well Benny, I don’t think you should trust them. I mean, they’re evil.”

“Audrey, we’ve been over this over and over and over again. They are not their parents, they’re good people who just want a chance. You need to let go who their parents are.”

“But Ben!”

“Enough! Audrey if you can’t listen to me about them then you need to just stop talking to me.” Ben snapped, tired of her uppity behavior and the way she looked down on his partners. He turned and continued to walk back towards his dorm.

“They tricked you! I know they did and I’m going to prove it!” Audrey yelled at his back. Ben walked even faster, bordering on sprinting towards his room. As soon as he made it through his room he dropped down, back pressed against the door and eyes closed.

“Rough day?” Carlos’ voice came from the area of his bed. Ben just groaned in response, refusing to open his eyes. He could hear someone walking around the room and a second later he could smell Evie’s perfume as she settled down next to him.

“Ben, do you want to talk about it or do you want to be distracted,” She said as she dragged her fingers through his hair. He could feel himself starting to relax.

“Distraction.”

"Tourney with Jay, homework with me, walking Dude with Carlos, or magic practice with Mal?” 

“Can we all stay together?” Ben asked, finally opening his eyes and figuring out where everyone was. Jay was laying on the floor with his head in Carlos’ lap and Dude curled up between them. Carlos was playing with Jay’s hair with one hand and reading with the other. Mal was laying on the bed, her spellbook laying open in front of her. All of them were clearly listening to the conversation even though none of them were looking at him.

“Of course we can Ben! We can all just hang out in here.” Evie tucked her hand into his and pulled him to his feet. She pulled him over to where Jay and Carlos were. Jay stood up gracefully without a word having to be spoken and Ben found himself in Jay’s old spot. Carlos didn’t hesitate, his fingers running through Ben’s hair in the same way that he had with Jay.

“Evie, I need help with our chemistry homework.” Jay easily moved towards the desk, with Evie right behind him. The two of them started talking about chemistry and Ben felt himself relax as their voices faded into the background. Carlos was absently humming as he held played with his hair. Ben started petting Dude, matching the rhythm that Carlos had going in his hair.

Ben opened his eyes to find the room a lot darker than it had been when they had closed.

“Well look who has decided to join us in the land of the living!” Mal’s voice came from above him. He rolled over and found himself face to face with both Mal and Carlos. 

“How long was I asleep?” Ben stretched out his back.

“A couple of hours,” Carlos said, setting the book in his hands down on a pile next to him. Ben noticed that it was a different book than the one he had been reading when he first arrived in the room.

“Don’t worry though,” Mal said, reaching down and poking his face. “Evie and Jay went and got you and Carlos dinner.” 

As if summoned by her, the two of them walked back into the room laughing. Each of them was holding platters of food, not grabbed from the dining room but from the kitchen. Ben smiled at them and sat up, taking a sharp breath in when his vision faded out for a second.

“Whoa! Ben, are you ok?” Carlos’ hands were firm on his back and Ben leaned into them as he blinked until his vision returned.

“Yeah, guess I sat up too fast,” Ben started to stand up but was gently pushed back down by Jay, who followed him down and knelt in front of him.

“Ben, when was the last time you ate?” Jay asked, setting the platter down and reaching up to feel Ben’s pulse with the other.

“I think I ate breakfast this morning?” Ben said, trying to think back and remember if he had or not.

“Ben, you left this morning at six! You haven’t eaten since them?” Evie asked. Ben shrugged at her and then looked down at the floor.

“Well then it’s good we brought enough food for an army,” Jay said, sensing the shift in the mood and trying to get everyone to relax.

“Yeah, come on everyone! Picnic on the floor!” Evie caught on to what Jay had been doing. Mal rolled off of the bed and settled down next to them all. Evie grabbed a blanket from the bed and spread it out on the floor while everyone else started pulling the food off of the platter. Once they were all settled they found themselves in various relaxed states.

Ben was leaning against Mal, with Evie leaning against his legs. Jay and Carlos were sitting across from them, with their legs pressed against the boys’. They all ate the food, Ben realizing quickly that he and Carlos were constantly being given extra food by their other partners. Ben looked at Carlos questioningly but Carlos just smiled and shook his head.

“You ready to talk about what happened earlier?” Evie asked after a few minutes.

“I uh, I just had a bunch of long and boring meetings and after everything, Audrey was complaining about you all once more. I just snapped at her.”

“I’ll kill her,” Mal said. Ben didn’t have to look up at her to know that her eyes were glowing green.

“Please don’t,” Ben said. “The only thing that’s gonna do is make everything a million and one times harder.”

“I have an idea,” Carlos said, everyone turned to look at him and he tensed before taking a deep breath and relaxing. “You know that phrase, ‘kill them with kindness’? Well, what if we were like, unnervingly kind to her. Going out of our way to say hi, always smiling, chatting with her, that sort of thing.”

“Do you know how fast that would drive her insane? We are definitely going to do that.” Jay’s eyes danced with mischief. Ben laughed a little, already feeling lighter about the situation.

“And how about we each take turns going to the meetings with you, two of us are already basically royal advisors, Mal is officially your girlfriend, so we really should be able to come and help,” Evie suggested, trying to tackle the next biggest problem.

“That could work, as long as it’s only one of you at a time. You all still make the royal court uncomfortable, and if we want to get everyone else off that island we need them to like us at least a little.” Ben straightened his back and stretched again before yawning loudly.

“And on that note, I’m ready to go to bed,” Carlos said with a matching yawn. Jay, Evie, and Mal all jumped up to get to work, Jay pulling Carlos and Ben to their feet while Evie and Mal dealt with the dishes and the blanket. Ben found himself with his pajamas in his hands while he stood in the bathroom alone before he realized it. Ben took a second to orient himself, and then he started getting ready for bed, feeling grateful once more that he had these four amazing people on his side.

When he left the bathroom he found his room clean and Mal and Jay in his bed waiting for him.

“Carlos and Evie are spending the night in our room tonight,” Mal said when she saw him. “We figured it would just be us two tonight. That ok?”

Ben smiled at them while he crawled into the bed, laying down between them with Mal in front of him and Jay behind him. As he settled down he felt one of Jay’s arms wrap around his waist and he rested his own arm on Mal’s hip. He fell asleep almost instantly, relaxing in between his partners.

The next morning he woke up alone in bed, which was an unusual occurrence. He normally had at least one person still in bed with him. Or they would wake him up before they left. He sat up slowly, looking around the room only to find it completely and totally empty. He climbed out of bed, rushing himself through his morning routine to get out of the room to find his partners.

As soon as he got down to the food hall he saw them all scattered throughout the room. All of them looked genuinely happy as they smiled at everyone and laughed with people from a bunch of different groups. Mal was sitting with a group of girls a few feet away from Audrey, laughing with the girls and smiling. Audrey was watching her with unrestrained concern, and Ben laughed quietly when he saw her. He walked to the closest of his partners, sitting down next to Carlos and joining the conversation. 

“So Dude has finally learned how to sit and roll over on command, but he also learned that when he sits he gets a treat so he’ll sit down next to me and then run over to where we keep a treat and whine until we give him one.” Carlos finished his story and turned to smile at Ben.

“Really annoying when I’m trying to help them with their homework,” Ben ruffled Carlos’ hair before standing up again. He walked over to the breakfast line and grabbed a muffin and a whole plate of fruit before walking over to where Mal was sitting.

“Hey, Ben!” Mal stood up and pressed a kiss to his cheek before sitting back down.

“Morning Mal,” Ben slid into the seat next to her. “Morning ladies.”

“Morning Ben,” A chorus of voices rose up from the table.

“So what are we talking about?”

“Evie’s new sewing machine and wall of fabrics.”

“Oh yeah? It’s really cool right!” Ben got excited, as he was the one who had set the whole thing up. He had brought in a few designers from the castle staff and they had helped him set up an entire sewing corner for her, with more fabric than she could use in a year. He had done something special like that with everyone else right after they all got together. Jay was given special workout equipment in his room, Carlos was given special furniture for Dude as well as a corner to paint in, and Mal was given express permission from Fairy Godmother to practice her magic under supervision which would get lighter the more in control of her magic she got.

“Yeah, she loves it! Right now she’s working on new Jackets for the Tourney Trio,” She pointed at him and then gestured towards where Carlos and Jay were sitting.

“Why are you being so nice?!” Audrey suddenly yelled. An immediate silence filled the room, but Audrey didn’t seem to notice. “I mean what are you guys up to? You’re all just suddenly being nice?!”

“Audrey, we’re always nice,” Mal smiled at her.

“No, you are not!” Audrey was standing on the bench and pointing at her.

“Audrey,” Chad pulled her down off the bench, “you’re making a scene.”

Audrey looked around at the crowd and her face flushed a deep red before she ran out of the room. Ben looked around and saw Jay walk over to Carlos and slip him a handful of bills. Ben rolled his eyes at their antics before turning back to his breakfast. 

The rest of the morning passed without any real issues, just Audrey glaring at them all whenever she saw them. His partners all considered that a complete success and spent the afternoon working out a schedule for when they’re going to spend their time with Ben in court. Ben had never been more grateful for these four people who found their way into his life and heart.


End file.
